Shadow Slave (Guiltythree) | Aposle of Oath

Dispatching a couple of skeletons, Sunny briefly turned to Isaac & Nephis as he said.

"Retreat to the bridge. Saint and I will hold them off!"

Nephis eyes shone with white flames through the visor of the Starlight Legion Armor's helmet.

Isaac gaze was indifferent yet Sunny swore he saw a hint of worry flash through them.

A moment later, he heard a hoarse voice.

"Are you sure?"

He dodged the claws of an especially menacing monster, bashed it away with the pommel of the tachi, and yelled.

"Yes! But..."

Another undead creature fell to the Midnight Shard.

"...when you get to the other side, you need to destroy the supports of the bridge.

Do you both understand?"

Changing Star hesitated, almost missing the timing of her attack.

Isaac stared at him for a few moments before nodding.

"What about you?"

Nephis spoke.

Sunny laughed.

"Don't worry about it. I have a way to get across!"

Neph didn't answer for a while.

Finally, she simply said.

"Alright."

Not one to waste words, Changing Star didn't say anything else.

When the opportunity presented itself, she and Isaac silently retreated, letting Sunny take there place.

'Now... for the hardest part...'

With Nephis and Isaac gone, all the monsters of the catacombs descended upon the Stone Saint and him.

Sunny cursed, feeling that the tiniest mistake would spell his doom.

The onslaught of the undead horde was beyond anything he had expected.

Desperately trying not to drown in the torrent of ferocious abominations, Sunny fought with everything he had left.

'Damn... it... all! How the hell was she able to hold this position for so long?!'

Not prone to heroic displays, Sunny used the Shadow as a meat shield... stone shield?

...and hid behind her from time to time, emerging from the cover of the taciturn monster only to deliver a strike or two and disappear again.

The two of them worked beautifully together, almost as if sharing one mind.

Well, what else did he expect?

She was his Shadow, after all.

And his shadow was currently wrapped around her stone body.

The armor of the menacing knight was still mostly intact.

However, even it was battered and broken in several places.

With a dark expression on his face, Sunny noticed a stream of ruby dust pouring from one of the breaches.

The Stone Saint was wounded.

'This needs to end fast...'

Feeling his own endurance running out, Sunny wanted nothing more than to fall to the ground and rest, even if it meant dying.

But instead, he doubled the intensity of his attacks.

There was no need to hold anything back and preserve his strength anymore.

He just had to last for a bit more... a dozen seconds, at most...

But even a dozen seconds seemed like an impossible dream.

Impossible... he knew someone who was in the habit of making impossible things happen...

With a furious growl, Sunny cut another skeleton apart, received a glancing blow to his already wounded side, and stumbled back.

The Shadow appeared in front of him, enduring a rain of attacks with the help of her already battered shield.

Her feet slid on the stones, but the taciturn knight stubbornly held.

'Goddamit! When?!'

As if answering his silent cry, and loud rattle followed by a thunderous boom informed him that the bridge had been brought down.

Now, there was nothing connecting the two sides of the terrifying chasm.

Sunny was left alone against the horde of immortal monsters, with no way to retreat.

'Finally.'

Turning his back to the undead creatures, Sunny peered into the darkness.

Seeing the cohort waiting for him on the other side of the dark abyss, he lingered for a moment, sighed, and ran to its edge.

The shadow slipped from the body of the Stone Saint and wrapped itself around his own.

Suddenly weakened, the taciturn monster held the entire horde back by herself for a split second, and then dissolved into darkness, returning to the tranquil expanse of the Soul Sea.

With no obstacles to slow them down anymore, the flood of skeletons lunged forward.

They were just a meter or two behind Sunny, stretching their deadly claws to tear him apart.

'Too close!'

Approaching the abyssal chasm, Sunny briefly glanced into the impenetrable darkness that filled it...

...And, without pausing even for a second, jumped off the edge.

'Crap!'

Jumping into the bottomless dark abyss, Sunny briefly regretted every decision he had ever made in his life.

How did he end up in this situation?

Where did he go wrong?

However, there was no time for self-reflection.

He wasn't ready to see his whole life flash before his eyes yet.

There were more pressing matters.

Before the momentum of his jump waned, Sunny summoned the Prowling Thorn.

By the time the triangular dagger materialized in his hand, he was already beginning to fall.

Not wasting any time, Sunny threw it with as much power as he could while simultaneously sending the shadow from his hand onto the blade of the kunai.

The throwing dagger flashed in the darkness of the underground cavern, streaked the wide chasm, and embedded itself into the hard rock on the other side of it.

Because of the enhancement of the shadow, it got deeply lodged in the stone.

'Yes!'

A moment later, the invisible string connecting the Prowling Thorn to Sunny's wrist drew tight.

Instantly, his hand was violently jerked forward. Holding on for his dear life, Sunny swung through the darkness with incredible speed.

Behind him, dozens of skeletons plummeted into the chasm, with more being pushed down with each second.

However, he was already far away.

'Ha! Bite it, you bastards!'

A couple of seconds later, all humor was smashed out of him by the hard impact against the opposite wall of the crevice.

Sunny tried to soften the blow a little, but it still hurt like crazy.

His bones groaned, on the verge of breaking apart.

A couple of them probably did.

Sunny blacked out for a moment or two.

When he came back to his senses, his wrist was in agony, with the invisible string of the Prowling Thorn slowly cutting deep into its skin.

Hissing, Sunny gripped the thin string with his other hand and relieved a part of the pressure.

Then, he looked up.

Ten or so meters above him, five pale faces hovered above the edge of the cliff.

On them were written expressions of horror, shock, and astonishment.

'Oh. Right. I guess they don't know about this Memory of mine.'

To the cohort, his desperate trick must have looked like... simple suicide.

From the perspective of people who didn't know about the secret enchantment of the Prowling Thorn, Sunny just took a running start and jumped into the abyss, only to disappear into its darkness without a trace.

'Tsk why is that bastard not there'.

Sunny could not see Isaac in the multitude of pale faces, staring down the dark abyss.

He felt deeply annoyed for some inexplicable reason.

Swinging on the invisible string, Sunny strained his aching chest and yelled.

"Hey, idiots! I'm down here!"

Slowly, four of the five faces turned to look straight down.

Their expressions were rather comical.

Cassie simply tilted her head.

...But her expression was priceless as well.

Grinning, Sunny began to climb up.

Since the string of the Prowling Thorn could change its length at will, he commanded it to shorten and rode comfortably all the way up, stepping lightly on the vertical wall of the chasm from time to time to make the process faster.

Soon, he climbed over the edge of the cliff and sprawled on the cold ground, breathing heavily.

Turning his head, he finally saw who he was looking for.

The tall youth stood there his calm grey eyes which held an unnatural sharpness stared at him with a dull expression.

The rest of the cohort just stared at him dumbfounded.

"...What?"

Sunny drowned in satisfaction looking at all the cohorts bewildered faces.

It was simply exquisite.

Of course, one bastard ruined it all, but he could think about that another time.

"Ahh Sunny".

'Speak of the devil'.

"What is it?"

Sunny replied, not at all liking the neutral expression on his friend's face.

"You know Kai can fly right?".

Sunny opened his mouth about to clearly retort on how he definitely knew that, but then froze.

'Yeah Kai does fly, doesn't he?'.

After a while, the pain of his Flaw forced him to answer.

"Yeah...".

Sunny responded meekly.

"So you know, he could've just flew you here instead of you doing that suicidal jump".

Sunny remained, silent for a long time.

After sometime, the cohort began their journey through the catacombs once more.

This time there were no skeletons to block their way, which allowed them to slowly rejuvenate their strength .

After a while, they suddenly entered a weird chamber.

Within the eerily large chamber, a large pile of bones seem to nearly reach the roof stood in the middle.

Isaac was currently staring at the bones with a dark expression.

Isaac was currently the ruler of the Bright Castle at least secretly.

So in truth, they did not need to go through the catacombs like in the original story to get to the Crown of Dawn.

He wanted to kill the Lord of the dead.

Of course, this wasn't gonna be easy nor would he be doing it on his own.

No matter how powerful the cohort was fighting, a Fallen Tyrant, especially one this large was suicidal.

Even if Isaac tried to leverage Sunny's [Fated] Attribute there was no guarantee that he would survive.

At the same time, he would not fight the Fallen Tyrant on his own either.

He was only an Awakened Monster.

But that didn't mean he had nothing at his disposal.

He had subsequently "acquired" a large amount of Memories before the trip.

He had forced Sunny to read through almost all the Memories.

Then he selected all the ones that would be useful for fighting the Lord of the dead.

Smiling darkly Isaac's eyes lit with greed.